We discovered a positive "early adopter effect" in social media.We compiled the data on when the world's top 83 consumer-facing brands created their brand pages on Twitter and Facebook. We then crunched numbers to determine whether there was a clear correlation between early adoption and success, defined as larger audience sizes.

The early adopter effect is more important for non-megabrands. The relationship between length of time on a social network, and audience size is strongest for second-tier top brands. Those brands that aren't global household names should think especially hard about joining emerging social media platforms early, ahead of the pack.

Of course, joining early is no guarantee of success. Many brands who join social media platforms early haven't seen that lead to audience advantages over their competitors. But our analysis does suggest that early adopters have a much better chance of surpassing the number of followers achieved by the typical big brand.